


A Distant Exploration

by Merfilly



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many, many vorns after the war has finally ended, two partners have come back together. They find an enigma to challenge them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Distant Exploration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [accidental_zombie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental_zombie/gifts).



Skyfire settled in at a cruising altitude and opened his bay doors. Starscream stepped out, gracefully transforming into his alt mode to fly beside him. They were on their tenth planetary survey since their reunion, far away from all other lifeforms. The war was a dimming memory for them both, time helping to lock away the pain and atrocities of the past.

::No extra-planetary satellites, but I am distinctly picking up refined metals on my sensors,:: Starscream told his partner.

::There are transmissions, slight and low power, on the communication bands,:: Skyfire agreed. ::I suggest using screen technology as we do our survey, to mask our presence here.::

::Cautious giant,:: Starscream teased him, but he powered up the defensive modifications as Skyfire did so. 

::I do not like having to engage in warfare, and low-end civilizations tend to shoot first and ask our motives later.:: Skyfire's tone was good-natured though. He knew peaceful exploration was not always enough for his bondmate. The scars of the war had gouged deeper in Starscream's core than Skyfire's, having lived (and died) through all of it.

::I will keep you safe against the primitives,:: Starscream declared boastfully. Skyfire let his amusement, and trust, flow through the bond between them at that sentiment before they both engaged their full sensor arrays on this world they had stumbled across.

* * *

Starscream was frowning as he transformed to land on the butte high above the settlement that he and Skyfire had found. Both of them were perplexed, leading to diagnostic checks on their sensors while they pondered what they had found.

"We are very far from the mecha zones of evolution," Skyfire said softly, watching the distant settlement. His fields buzzed with perplexed energy, which Starscream knew he echoed. "In the last nine systems, we found evidence of very early silicate lifeforms evolving, nothing of carbon, and certainly nothing to indicate a fully realized sentient species of our own nature."

"I know," Starscream groused at him. "They are a mystery. More so because their transmissions are weak, and the alloys in their constructions are so… primitive." 

"Yet their forms are as advanced as our own, though less… violent in nature?" Skyfire said the last just to make Starscream bridle and buzz with energy.

"Peaceful fools, then," Starscream answered that with contempt.

"I have not witnessed any hint of transformation among them," Skyfire added. "I am curious. Shall we stay, observe, and see what can be learned of them?"

Starscream appeared to consider it, but he had already decided. It was a mystery, even if it wasn't the branch of science he preferred. He could indulge Skyfire's love of life science this time. "We shall. This makes a good observation point, as we've seen nothing to indicate a mastery of flight yet."

That last was also said with contempt. Starscream would always be a creature of the air, no matter what other choices he made.

"I'll set up the holo-projectors, to keep us from being easily seen in our camp," Skyfire told him, opening compartments to acquire what he needed.

"I believe I wish to fly over them again… screened, my worrying mate, I promise," Starscream said, adding the last at the hesitant look his way.

"Very well, Starscream. You will, no matter what I say, and your mass is small enough they may believe it to be just wind when you do," Skyfire conceded.

* * *

The primitive society was, after two planetary cycles, proving to be an enigma, but a boring one, Starscream decided. They had a structured society, one that centered on the most complex building in the center of the village. 

"Religious significance is a phrase for 'we do not know'," Starscream sniped as he read through Skyfire's report.

"They go in with offerings; they come out with none." Skyfire looked at his partner patiently. "You sneaked during the nocturnal cycle and could find no place in which it might have been stored, ruling out the use of that building as a warehouse. Nor did you find any incomplete lifeforms or damaged ones that would need caring for. Ergo, temple."

"I hate seeing creatures built on logical schematics fall prey to mystical nonsense," Starscream grumbled at him. "What did your scans turn up on the … ahh, here. 'The armor scrapings discovered seem to be of an alloyed nature similar to Cybertronian'… WHAT?!"

Skyfire winced at the shrill note, then brought up a holographic projection of the analysis of the metal layering. "It is not Lithonian or any of the other Allied extractions. See here, how the bonding of the atoms is tripled?"

Starscream studied it closer, then snapped his optics back over to the settlement. He saw a few of the primitives moving on the outer edge, carrying crude energy staffs that were tools, not integrated weapons. "Theory?"

" _Hypothesis_ ," Skyfire said, stressing the more nebulous level of scientific approach, "is that we are seeing an offshoot of a lost colonial ship. A crew that was stranded and then either procreated with limited supplies of the proper nutrients, causing a regression of transformation ability, or these descend from the more primitive neutrals, and those who had transformation capability found a way to leave the world."

"Or were destroyed," Starscream said darkly.

"Perhaps. We had tales in our youth of how barbaric the non-transforming Cybertronians could be," Skyfire agreed.

"And the temple? What is it a temple to or for, since you believe it is a religious meeting place?"

Skyfire let his fields ripple with amusement. "To know, I will sneak down there tonight, and study it."

Starscream had to return the amused ripple at that; his partner was not the most stealthy of mechs, but it would be fun. And if the primitives protested… well, Starscream still had nullrays, so that Skyfire's sensibilities would stay intact.

* * *

The primitives all seemed to avoid the nocturnal part of their planet's cycles, allowing both mechs to set down in the midst of the village and enter the building they wished to explore. Starscream led the way, having visited once. Inside, Skyfire was amazed to find beautiful art adorned all the walls, while a cube constructed so that it rested on one point took up the central position. That cube slowly rotated, leading Skyfire to come closer, inspecting it. The resting point was not actually touching the pedestal.

"Starscream, would you scan the cube while I study the art?" Skyfire asked quietly.

Starscream was looking at the cube in puzzlement, his optics narrowed into a focus that obscured all other features of the building. "It was flat, and not spinning, the last time," he said.

"Perhaps it has a program to follow. Scans?"

"Of course!" Starscream snapped, shifting his sensors to the task at hand.

Skyfire looked at the art, puzzling through the forms from beauty to meaning. As he grasped the logic of the stylized figures, he began to see it was the tale of the people that worshiped in this building. And he knew now that it was worship, as the figures presented the story of a heavenly body crashing, bringing life and the cube both to this world. Skyfire slowly toured the entire temple room, watching as the new life flourished in this place, giving a tithe of their metals and life both to the cube. The cube would give new lives to them after a time, it seemed, and its energies continued to shape those it made.

"Primus," Skyfire whispered, turning back to look at the cube. His partner was still transfixed by it, completing his scans with something causing his fields to grow more agitated. However, Skyfire's voice must have penetrated Starscream's work, for he broke off his sensor scans and stepped back.

"Primus," Starscream echoed, as if agreeing. Yet, there was a note of… respect? Awe? Skyfire was not sure which was more accurate as his mercurial bondmate moved very close to him.

"Your scans?" Skyfire prompted, compiling the creation story and history into a file to share.

"Away from here first!" Starscream would not be swayed, Skyfire knew, so they departed swiftly. Only Starscream was not headed for their camp. He angled for higher altitude, forcing Skyfire to follow.

::Starscream?::

::Once we break into open space!::

Skyfire quieted then, and said nothing when his partner chose to complete the climb unassisted, despite the expenditure of energy to do so. Once they were free of the planet's gravity well, Starscream consented to enter his partner.

"Head for the next system," Starscream told him after he had transformed inside the bay.

"Yes, Starscream."

Skyfire waited until Starscream had settled on the berth with a cube of energon, trying to contain his curiosity.

"It was Primus's work," Starscream said finally. "I have felt those energies before, when that berserker Galvatron nearly finished my existence. Primus gave me the tools to return, and it felt just like that cube. I do not know how or why… but I think those primitives are His new creations. And the cube did not want us there!"

"Oh." Skyfire was fascinated by it, but he wondered. Why had Primus begun anew, so far from Cyberton, instead of helping His first creations rebuild from the devastating war?

"I would not, could not risk you to whatever the cube might do, Skyfire," Starscream said softly. "Nor did I wish to risk non-existence once more. Even I could not harness that energy."

Such an admission rocked Skyfire, and he let his fields focus on his mate. "We are together and away from there. That is all we need."

"Yes." Starscream offlined his optics then, and let the memories of that world fade away from his current thoughts. Skyfire and he were safe, and that world could evolve to the cube's wishes.


End file.
